Blog by-the-Sea

Snow and Advent: Radiant Beauty

(Note: This is the next to last rose meditation for 2008.  The last one is in the Christmas category: Snow and Christmas: Peace on Earth)

In the Responsory for Morning Prayer for weekdays of the first two weeks of Advent, we pray each day:

“Your light will come, Jerusalem; the Lord will dawn on you in radiant beauty.  You will see his glory within you; the Lord will dawn on you in radiant beauty.”

The prophecy of Isaiah 33:17 says, "Your eyes will see the king in his beauty; they will behold a land that stretches afar."

The carol "Lo, How a Rose E'er Blooming" reflects the radiant beauty of Christ's coming, symbolized by a rose.  "This Flower, whose fragrance tender with sweetness fills the air, Dispels with glorious splendor the darkness everywhere."

The older carol, "There Is No Rose of Such Virtue", speaks of Mary as the rose, rather than Christ, a reference to the beauty of her virtues.

In the Final Document of its Plenary Assembly, in 2006, the Pontifical Council for Culture said, “For the believer, beauty transcends the aesthetic and finds its archetype in God.” All Christian artwork, they said, leads along a path that reveals the meaning, origin and end of our terrestrial journey, a passage that “becomes real in Jesus Christ, who is Himself ‘the way, the truth and the life,’ (Jn 14, 6) the ‘complete truth.’ (Jn 16, 13)”.  That is true of every beautiful carol sung in Advent and Christmas in that the beauty of art and music finds its archetype in God.  In the rose carols, the beauty of the rose as symbolic of the birth of Christ and the virtue of Mary specifically point to the beauty of God and the beauty of holiness.

The beauty of Advent and Christmas, in decorations and music, express joy in the birth of Jesus.  The beauty of nature at this time of the year, seen in the snow scenes in Christmas cards and in the references to a winter night in Christmas carols, often express the peacefulness of a winter snow as well as the precarious predicament of the Holy Family, with no room at the inn. 

"Snow had fallen, snow on snow" from "In the Bleak Midwinter", and "The snow lay on the ground . . . on Christmas night" from the carol of the same name, also "See Amid the Winter Snow" reflect the same sense of winter as seen in the much older carol "Lo, How a Rose E'er Blooming".  It is both cold and peaceful, both fragile and beautiful.  References to snow and the cold of winter remember the birth of Jesus who was laid in a manger in a cave, a birth to a poor family that was dangerous and at the same time joyful.  While historians and exegetes will tell us that there would have been no snow in Bethlehem at the time of the Lord's birth, the tradition of snow in manger scenes in December reflects the Holy Family's plight as well as the purity of fresh snow.

The beauty of winter scenes carries into contemporary Christmas carols, both religious and secular.  "White Christmas", "Winter Wonderland", and "Let It Snow!" are just a few of the many examples.  Those songs sometimes celebrate the joy of Christmas snow more than the birth of Christ.  They still express the joy of Christmas and the beauty of nature that reminds us of the beauty of the Nativity and joy at the birth of the Lord.

It is no coincidence that Christmas is associated with midnight, while Easter is associated with sunrise.  In describing Christ's birth, St. Luke's Gospel describes a scene of joy and beauty to shepherds outside at night: "The glory of the Lord shone around them . . . I bring you news of a great joy."  St. Matthew's Gospel also describes things that happened at night, including an angel appearing to Joseph in a dream to tell him what would happen, and the Magi seeing a star and going to worship the newborn Christ.  With Christmas in late December, Europeans associated the hazards and beauty of a midnight snow with these events.  The radiant beauty of Christ's birth is reflected in snowy Christmas scenes and snow flocked Christmas trees.  The radiant beauty of holiness is seen in the purity of fresh snow and in the symbolism of a rose.

Photo credit: Based in Villigen.

Fr. Raniero Cantalamessa: Advent 2008

Zenit has posted English translations of Fr. Raniero Cantalamess'a three Advent sermons in the papal household for this year.  Fr. Cantalamessa's earlier homilies and his Advent and Lenten reflections from past years can be found on his own website's page of homilies in the papal household in English.

Dec. 5:  The Conversion of St. Paul: Model of True Christian Conversion 

God took the initiative of salvation: He has made his Kingdom come; man must only accept, in faith, God's offer and live the demands afterward. It is like a king who opens the door of his palace, where a great banquet is ready, and, being at the door, invites all passersby to enter, saying: "Come, all is ready!" It is the call that resounds in all the so-called parables of the Kingdom: The hour much awaited has struck, take the decision that saves, do not let the occasion slip by!

Dec. 12:  Called by God to Communicate with His Son Jesus Christ 

This emptying of one's hands and pockets of every pretension, in a spirit of poverty and humility, is the best way to prepare for Christmas. We are reminded of it by a delightful Christmas legend that I would like to mention again. It narrates that among the shepherds that ran on Christmas night to adore the Child there was one who was so poor that he had nothing to offer and was very ashamed. Reaching the grotto, all competed to offer their gifts. Mary did not know what to do to receive them all, having to hold the Child in her arms. Then, seeing the shepherd with his hands free, she entrusted Jesus to him. To have empty hands was his fortune and, on another plane, will also be ours.

Dec. 19:  When the Fulness of Time Had Come God Sent His Son to Be Born of a Woman 

This project of a new life must translate itself, without delay, into something concrete, into a change, possibly even external and visible, in our life and in our habits. If the plan is not put into action, Jesus is conceived, but he is not born. It will become one of the many spiritual abortions. The "second feast" of the Child Jesus, which is Christmas, will never be celebrated. It will be one of the many postponements which are the main reason why so few become saints.

Snow and Advent: Snow in the Writing of Bl. Hildegard of Bingen

The symbolism of snow includes purity, as in the miraculous snowfall of Our Lady of the Snows, St. Mary Major in Rome.  Yet the turbulence of a winter storm brings to mind life's turbulence, the instability of earthly life.

Bl. Hildegard of Bingen used both images in her writing, but only one of them with reference to the Incarnation.

In her foremost work Scivias, describing a vision, she wrote, "Thus you see that a splendor white as snow and translucent as crystal shines around the image of that woman from the top of her head to her throat."  Explaining that part of her vision, she wrote, "For the Church, who is the incorrupt Bride, is surrounded by apostolic teaching, which reveals the pure Incarnation of Him Who descended from Heaven into the Virgin's womb and Who is the strong and clear mirror of all the faithful."  There, the snow's whiteness is used to describe the Church's apostolic teaching, which reveals Christ's pure Incarnation through the Virgin birth.

In contrast, in one of her letters to an Abbot, she wrote, "Your mind is like a snow cloud, which rises above an airy cloud in which the sun radiates, and sometimes it is like a windy cloud that brings storms.  The snow cloud is the weariness of an unstable mind.  The airy cloud, however, indicates unsullied knowledge acquired with the patience of faith.  But the windy cloud brings the disturbance of great distress found in unquiet minds."  (Letters, Vol. II)  There, the snow cloud is used to describe instability of mind, like the instability of the weather when snow is in the forecast.

The instability of human hearts is easy to see in these days, as we watch the stock market roller coaster with each new day's glad or discouraging news.  I suppose that most people can probably relate to Hildegard's description of an unquiet mind, comparing it to a windy snow cloud.  But the snow itself she uses to describe the apostolic teaching that reveals the Incarnation to the Church.  The soft purity of a blanket of white snow on the ground easily symbolizes something different from a volatile snow cloud. 

In Hildegard's letter, the snow cloud symbolizes the unsettled mind of an individual with many things on his mind, despite the knowledge he has gained "with the patience of faith."  She saw that "airy cloud" of "unsullied knowledge" as stabilizing.  "The pure air," she told the abbot, "bestows dew, stable temperature, and rain: vegetation and flowers grow from it."  Similarly, the "splendor white as snow" symbolizes that knowledge that can bring stability to a worried mind: the Church's apostolic teaching of the pure Incarnation of Christ, born of a Virgin.

Christmas draws nearer.  The peaceful message of the birth of the blessed Babe is ever needed, especially in troubled times.

Photo Credit: Tim Haynes, also known as PigleT: A Landscape Photographer in Scotland, "Sun on Snow Clouds" from Panoramio.

Snow and Advent: Hope in the Desert

In the Advent carol, Lo, How a Rose E'er Blooming (an English translation of a 16th and early 17th century German carol discussed in various Advent posts this year), we sing, "It came, a floweret bright, amid the cold of winter, When half spent was the night."  The flower blooming in the night is a sign of life and beauty, which brings hope in the barrenness of winter.

In an earlier post, I wrote about the carol's references to Isaiah's prophecies in Isaiah 11:1 ("There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots") and Isaiah 35:1-2 ("The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad, the desert shall rejoice and blossom; like the crocus it shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice with joy and singing. The glory of Lebanon shall be given to it, the majesty of Carmel and Sharon. They shall see the glory of the LORD, the majesty of our God.").  Another prophecy about the desert, read during Advent, is Isaiah 40:3-5: "A voice cries: 'In the wilderness prepare the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain. And the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of the LORD has spoken.'"

In the carol, the barrenness of a Western European winter is substituted for the barrenness of the Middle Eastern desert.  Jesus is seen as the rose that blooms "amid the winter cold" in the darkness of midnight, referencing Isaiah's prophecies that speak of a branch or crocus blossoming in the wilderness.  The carol substituted an image from its own time and place for the desert wilderness described by Isaiah.

In Isaiah's prophecy, the desert is a picture of exile from the promised land for people awaiting the Messiah.  In the carol, the cold winter night is a similar picture of a barren land, awaiting the birth of Jesus at Christmas.

Isaiah asked Israel to prepare in the desert for the coming of the Messiah, drawing close to God like the people of the Exodus.  St. John the Baptist sought to live that kind of detachment from earthly things, turning toward God in the wilderness, as the prophet Elijah also had done.  Hermits in the desert seek to live in detachment from the things of this world as a means of repentance, abandoning their sins in order to draw closer to God in the innermost depths of their hearts.

The early hermits on Mt. Carmel similarly sought to live the spirituality of the desert in order to grow closer to God.  P. Marie-Eugene, O.C.D., in his book I Want to See God, wrote about how we live the spirituality of the desert in our own time and state of life.  Speaking of St. Teresa of Avila's adapting the charism of the early hermits of Mt. Carmel to her own time and place by forming cloistered Carmelite convents, Père Marie-Eugene comments that we too must adapt that spirituality to our own era and to our own state of life.

That is something like what the carol does in substituting a cold December night for the desert in its symbolism, in substituting a rose for a shoot sprouting in the desert.  In the austerity of a cold winter night, we draw near to the Christ child, the shoot growing from the root of Jesse in that bare environment where the leaves of the trees and the greenery of summer have been lost.

In a footnote to Chapter VI about "Teresian Asceticism", Père Marie-Eugene explained, "Saint Teresa was able to revive the primitive spirit of Carmel in the sixteenth century only by creating a form of eremitic life adapted to the customs and the needs of her time."  He explained that some things must change, and others are "immutable because inseparable from the very spirit."  Only sanctity can mould that into "a living and authentic form the spirit", finding a present day form of the detachment of the desert without losing what is essential and unchangeable in it.

The detachment that Isaiah had in mind is that sort of turning toward God and toward spiritual things, seeking to know God and do His will.

It is then that we may notice the roses in the snow, or the desert flower blooming from a seemingly dead root.  That rose, Christ born in the manger, is the hope of life in a barren land.  Isaiah's prophecy is one of hope for the coming of the Lord, for a brighter day that He will bring.  "The desert shall rejoice and blossom . . . and rejoice with joy and singing. The glory of Lebanon shall be given to it, the majesty of Carmel and Sharon. They shall see the glory of the LORD, the majesty of our God."

Photo credit: Moosey, from Moosey's Country Garden.  Used with permission.

Snow and Advent: Darkness and Light

"In him was life, and the life was the light of men.  The light shines in darkness, and the darkness does not overcome it."  (John 1:4-5) 

In the carol Lo How a Rose E'er Blooming, we are told of the rose (Jesus), "It came, a floweret bright, amid the cold of winter, When half spent was the night."  The cold and the darkness of midnight equate to the desert in the prophecy of Isaiah 35:1-3 and the darkness mentioned in John 1:4-5.  The rose blooming in Mary, purest Maid, has light in the darkness.  Where there was no external source of light, God in human flesh brought his own supernatural light into the world.  "This Flower, whose fragrance tender with sweetness fills the air, Dispels with glorious splendor the darkness everywhere."

Some years ago, I heard of a theologian who thought that the Scriptural references to darkness were not understood by present day people.  We do not know darkness as it was known in Scriptural times or in Renaissance times when the carol was written.  The electrical lighting in our homes, churches, and on our streets prevent us from knowing the insurmountable darkness that was known to people in earlier centuries.  When the darkness of night could only be overcome by candles, torches, or fire in the fireplace, darkness was experienced differently from the way darkness is experienced in our own era.  People could not simply turn on the lights if there was a sound at the door or an earthquake or storm.

Yet, today, we do understand darkness, and in some ways we understand it more than the people of those earlier times.  The darkness of a walk a few blocks to our cars on a city street makes us more fearful of an attack than when we walk the same distance during the day.  But that is not the darkness that we think of when we hear the reference to midnight in the rose carols of Advent.  Instead, it is the darkness of our interior lives when we are depressed and when we feel remorse over some wrong that we have done, and when we feel distant from God's love, without a sense of his presence in our lives. 

Psychological darkness and spiritual darkness are understood today, and we understand more scientifically the need for light.  In an extreme form, we know of a form of depression that is caused in some people by the absence of light in the winter months (seasonally affective disorder).  Even people who have no disorder know the feel of the sun in summer, and are affected by its absence in the shorter days of winter.  Recent research even offers hope that, some time in the future, light may be used to enhance treatments for cancer.

So we ought to understand the carols that speak of the birth of Jesus as bringing light into a dark winter night.  We understand darkness and light differently from the people who first sang these carols, but we understand them.  Jesus is born to free us from sin and death just as light frees us from darkness.  "True Man, yet very God, from sin and death He saves us, And lightens every load."

Photo credit: Image copyright 2007 by Katy Dickinson (http://blogs.sun.com/katysblog) from December 11, 2007.

The Marian Symbolism of a Rose

"I am a rose of Sharon, a lily of the valleys.  As a lily among brambles, so is my love among maidens."

- Song of Solomon 2:1-2 (spoken by the bride, describing herself as the lowly meadow-saffron, in contrast with the groom who is a noble apple or citron tree).

"The rose as the queen of flowers was evidently a privileged symbol for Mary, Queen of heaven and earth.  We see this development later during the Middle Ages . . ."

- The Christian Symbolism of the Rose: Our Lady and the Rose, by Theodore A. Koehler, S.M.

On the Vatican Museum website, there is a page about a painting by Fra Angelico  of the Madonna between Sts. Dominic and Catherine of Alexandria.  The Vatican page says that Mary is "holding a rose, the symbol of wisdom" in that painting.  As she is playing with the Christ child, the two saints kneel in the foreground.  The image on that page appears to be broken, but you can see it here.

Mary Makes the Redemption Clear

"With the mystery of her Immaculate Conception, Mary therefore stands at a point of intersection in the Trinity, because she is a gift both from the Son to the Father and from the Father to the Son; the Father is preeminent in this since it is he who gives her to the Son in order to be able to get his work underway in the first place.  Mary is planned and created both from and for the Cross.  The Spirit, who bears the seed of the Father into the womb of the Mother, accompanies this pre-redeemed Mother throughout her entire life.  He receives her, as it were, from the Father's hands so as to give her back into these hands.  He participates as her advocate and comforter by keeping her away from all sin; he also participates, however, as the advocate and comforter of the Son by showing to him the feasibility of the plan; and as advocate and comforter of the Father by demonstrating to him how, by virtue of the Mother's pre-redemption by the Father, the Son can have no doubt about carrying out his work.  From the start, Mary makes the redemption clear and graphic for the Son, the redemption that is meant for all and that will be sufficient for all."

- Adrienne Von Speyr, Mary in the Redemption, translated by Helena M. Tomko, Ignatius Press, 2003.

An Exodus to the Kingdom of God

In his words at the midday Angelus on this second Sunday of Advent, Pope Benedict XVI spoke about the prophecy from Isaiah 40 in today's readings for Mass.  In it, the prophet announces the liberation of the Israelites from years of Exile: "In the desert, prepare the way of the Lord!" (Isaiah 40:3).  Applying Isaiah's prophecy to the coming of Jesus, the Holy Father said, "He inaugurated an exodus that is not only earthly and historical - and therefore provisional - but that is radical and definitive: the passage from the kingdom of evil to the Kingdom of God, from the dominion of evil and death to that of love and life."  After the prayer, he asked everyone to pray for Alexy II, the Orthodox Church Patriarch of Moscow, who died on Friday.

A full English translation is available at Papa Ratzinger Forum.  An article is available from Asia News.

Snow and Advent: The Rose in Winter

Some of the carols sung during Advent and Christmas speak of Jesus' birth as a rose blooming in the winter cold.  The best known of these is Lo, How a Rose E'er Blooming, the subject of two earlier posts this Advent: "It came, a floweret bright, amid the cold of winter, When half spent was the night."

That carol, as commonly sung, mentions a prophecy of Isaiah that foretold the birth of Christ.  A related carol, in which the "rose" refers to Mary, is planned to be a subject of future posts.

Two passages of Isaiah are associated with that part of the carol, and they may be read with it in Lessons and Carols services.  Isaiah 11:1 says:

"There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots." 

Isaiah 35:1-3 says:

"The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad, the desert shall rejoice and blossom; like the crocus it shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice with joy and singing. The glory of Lebanon shall be given to it, the majesty of Carmel and Sharon. They shall see the glory of the LORD, the majesty of our God."

A rose (a "shoot" or "crocus") blooming in the desert wilderness is seen as Christ coming into the world.  Here is grace, life blooming where it was not sown by human labor.  Here is salvation, returning to fruitful living after exile.  Isaiah 35:10 says, "And the ransomed of the LORD shall return, and come to Zion with singing; everlasting joy shall be upon their heads; they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away."

For the time it is there, a rose's striking beauty stands out against the death of winter and the darkness of a winter night.  It is a picture of life where the work of human hands could not bring life, light in the middle of the longest nights.

Picturing Jesus as a rose in winter is also a picture of His innocence in the harsh environment of the world.  It evokes the crucifixion.  A rose in the such cold attracts attention because we know it is too delicate for the snow and will die.  It does not belong in that harsh environment.

Isaiah 53 is the best known Messianic prophecy remembered at Christmas.  There, Isaiah says of Jesus, "For he grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground; he had no form or comeliness that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him." (Isaiah 53:2).  The picture there is one of a plant growing in the desert where it has no chance of surviving, a poor young plant that is rejected because it is weak and unattractive.  "He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief."  (Isaiah 53:3).  Jesus, as a life blooming in the desert, is rejected by people and crucified.

Isaiah also foretells the resurrection, for example, "when he makes himself an offering for sin, he shall see his offspring, he shall prolong his days; the will of the LORD shall prosper in his hand."  (Isaiah 53:10).

In this, we might see ourselves too as roses in winter, fragile and broken, likely to be trampled unseen.  We might identify with Israel in exile, remembering a better Christmas in the past, worried about the future, uncertain about whether the young plant sprouting in the desert is quite enough.  We are even encouraged to see our own sufferings that way, as Jesus called on people to take up their cross and follow Him (Mark 10:38).  St. Paul spoke of the crucifixion as "a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God" (Eph. 5:2).  If one member of the body of Christ suffers, all members suffer with him or her (I Cor. 12:26).

There is a connection there with the Marian symbolism of the rose in the original 16th century carol. It comes from the "Rose of Sharon" in Song of Solomon 2:1, which is the bride, and not the groom: the Church or Mary, and not Jesus.  (See this earlier post on Mary as mother of God and as Church, and mother of the Church.)  In Song of Solomon, Christ, the Bridegroom, is seen as the apple tree, strong and regal as compared to the bride who is compared to the humble desert flower (Song of Solomon 2:1-4):

"I am a rose of Sharon, a lily of the valleys.  As a lily among brambles, so is my love among maidens. 

"As an apple tree among the trees of the wood, so is my beloved among young men. With great delight I sat in his shadow, and his fruit was sweet to my taste.  He brought me to the banqueting house, and his banner over me was love."

The Incarnation -- the Word made flesh -- is God in human flesh, thus subject to the fragility of the human form in order to save His people.  That birth as a baby, the Word of God in human flesh, who came into the world to die for our sins, is what this prophecy from Isaiah is about.  The carol "Lo How a Rose E'er Blooming" ends:

O Savior, Child of Mary, who felt our human woe,
O Savior, King of glory, who dost our weakness know;
Bring us at length we pray, to the bright courts of Heaven,
And to the endless day!

Photo credit: Paul Clos from "Frozen in Time", Photoholics Anonymous.

Advent and Silence

I only just saw the post at Moniales called Let the Heavens Rain Down the Just One: "Advent is a time of contemplative silence and snow always seems to bring a certain quality of silence, a hush, around us."  I think it is exceptionally good.